Long ago, there ruled in Persia a wise and good king. He loved his people. He wanted to know how they lived. He wanted to know about their hardships. Often he dressed in the clothes of a working man or a beggar, and went to the homes of the poor. No one whom he visited thought that he was their ruler. One time he visited a very poor man who lived in a cellar. He ate the coarse food the poor man ate. He spoke cheerful, kind words to him. Then he left.

Later he visited the poor man again and disclosed his identity by saying, “I am your king!” The king thought the man would surely ask for some gift or favor, but he didn’t. Instead he said, “You left your palace and your glory to visit me in this dark, dreary place. You ate the coarse food I ate. You brought gladness to my heart! To others you have given your rich gifts. To me you have given yourself!”

The King of glory, the Lord Jesus Christ, gave himself to you and me. The Bible calls Him, “the unspeakable gift!”

Another Version:

Many years ago the land of Persia was ruled by a wise and beloved Shah who cared greatly for his people and desired only what was best for them. One day he disguised himself as a poor man and went to visit the public baths. The water for the baths was heated by a furnace in the cellar, so the Shah made his way to the dark place to sit with the man who was in charge of the fire. The two men shared a meagre meal, and the Shah befriended him in his loneliness, and day after day the ruler came to visit the man.

Eventually the Shah revealed his true identity, and he expected the man to ask for him for money or a gift. Instead he looked long into his leader’s face and with love and wonder in his voice said, “You left your palace and your glory to sit with me in this dark place, to eat my coarse food, and to care about what happens to me. On others you bestow riches and gifts, but to me you have given yourself.”

This version quoted from www.itsaboy.org.uk website

Whether he was born in 4 B.C. or A.D. 6, in Bethlehem or Nazareth, whether there were multitudes of the heavenly host to hymn the glory of it or just Mary and her husband–when the child was born, the whole course of human history was changed. That is a truth as unassailable as any truth. Art, music, literature, Western culture itself with all its institutions and Western man’s whole understanding of himself and his world–it is impossible to conceive how differently things would have turned out if that birth had not happened whenever, wherever, however it did. And there is a truth beyond that: for millions of people who have believed since, the birth of Jesus made possible not just a new way of understanding life but a new way of living it

Frederick Buechner in Listening to Your Life. Christianity Today, Vol. 37, no. 15

Christmas is when God came down the stairs of heaven with a baby in His arms.

R. Eugene Sterner in Vital Christianity (Dec 14, 1975). Christianity Today, Vol. 34, no. 18.

He became what we are that he might make us what he is.

Saint Athanasius